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Monday May 23, 2005 11:51 pm

Making Money As An Affiliate

On the Internet, you have the opportunity to make money by selling your own products and/or services, but that does require you to develop concepts and hang on to inventory. Luckily, there are other avenues available on the Internet in which you can make money if you are willing to put effort into it. One such way is to promote products as an affiliate.

An affiliate is basically a website or person who acts as a salesman for a larger website providing goods or services. Basically, the site will provide you with banner ads, links, and other materials for you to use to generate sales or leads for their product. Each time someone purchases, views, or clicks through to the web site of the advertiser, the affiliate (you) gets a commission. One of the most popular affiliate programs on the Internet happens to come from Amazon. You can sign up as an Amazon Associate, and gain access to images and a link generator which allows you to sell Amazon products directly on your website. If someone purchases an item on Amazon by using your link or image, you will receive a cut. Here is a brief rundown:

Associates drive Internet traffic to Amazon.com through specially formatted links that allow Amazon to track sales and other activity.

Associates earn up to 10% in referral fees on all qualifying revenue made through their links.

Amazon sends quarterly payment to Associates.

Another great affiliate program is the one run by the iTunes Music Store. The iTunes Affiliate Program. It pays 5% of all revenue generated from your links. These are just two examples of ways you can make money using the lure of products from other, more well known resources. If you have had success with affiliate programs, let us know about it in the comments.